[extropy-chat] Enlightenment and the election

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Gregory Cartwright <glc at cartwrightlawgroup.com> wrote:

> Dear Hal:
> 
>      I agree with the general proposition that different systems can
> yield different results from which to choose.  But why do we suppose
> that space stations, islands, or virtual worlds would behave much
> differently than the political systems and choices we have today.

It is a sense of being divorced from the vast mass of humanity that
sounds liberating. What is not considered is that liberty in practice
mostly comes down to resource availability, recoverability, and
utilization efficiency. Many space stations, islands, or other such
environments I believe would quite quickly run up against resource
restraints that would cause a population to impose Georgist measures to
impose costs for utilization of resources beyond "one's fair share",
unless the community were specifically designed to provide each
inhabitant much more than they need under normal marginal utility
practices and took passive or active measures to maintain population at
an optimum level.

Proponents of space colonies and islands (particularly artificial ones)
also tend to overlook the infrastructure costs of creating "there". For
colonists to get 'there' is one thing, but building the "there" is
another huge barrier. There is still far too much unsettled land
available on this planet for it to be cost effective to live on
artificial islands or space colonies. Until some real Georgist lifeboat
measures are imposed by reality or by artificially created scarcity of
natural land, space or sea colonization will not become an attractive
option in an economic sense, and thus will not be viable options for
liberty seekers unless some secret santa comes along.

Bigelow is the sort of secret santa needed: someone willing to put
forward the money with no expectation of gain in any sort of short or
mid term scenario (if at all). Historically, liberty seekers have
always depended on Nature as benefactor as much as or more than on
their own wit and resourcefulness. When Nature does not provide, the
costs for another to be the benefactor are quite high.

=====
Mike Lorrey
Vice-Chair, 2nd District, Libertarian Party of NH
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
                                      -William Pitt (1759-1806) 
Blog: http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=Sadomikeyism


		
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